Sorry for missing the last few eventful WEEKS, and Happy New Year to all. Lots of folks were asking about Mackenzie in the past few days between holidays, so here’s a brief update…

Mackenzie is doing well and continues to show improvement. The last month has been spent largely in speech and occupational therapy appointments at GRMC, with “homework” therapy assigned for the days in-between. She had only a couple occupational therapy sessions, and one physical therapy, before “graduating” out of those sessions. She has one more speech therapy session tomorrow but I expect we will add more of those for at least the next month or so.

I purchased a couple of Aphasia home therapy apps from Tactus Therapy for Mackenzie’s iPad and she has been using those at times, and doing quite well with them most of the time. She has also tried connecting with online Aphasia sessions from the Lingraphica Community, although the last session for her age group never happened. There is an “open chat” session coming up in 20 minutes and we are encouraging her to check-in on that!

Last night’s “therapy” was playing “Cards Against Humanity”, and other board games, with us and a couple of friends. She’s also been doing lots of online reading, and we make her read out-loud as often as we can. She’s also got me started learning to play “Final Fantasy Fourteen” (FFXIV) on her old PlayStation 4 where she’s always reading the character interactions and instructions to me. I’m still very confused, but learning.

Dealing with UIHC (neurology), UnityPoint (therapy), and MercyCare (primary care) continues to be a struggle. Everyone assumes that UIHC should take the lead on things, but their bureauratic tangle of policies and procedures can be a nightmare at times, it makes my head hurt. Everything takes at least a week, sometimes a month, and I’m told we can expect bills from them for the next 2 years! They won’t even see her at UIHC again until 3 months after the 2nd stroke, on February 14. Fortunately, Mackenzie’s MercyCare primary care provider (PCP) has stepped up to help us manage some of the insurance and planning issues.

Most importantly, Mackenzie’s MercyCare PCP has assessed her medical condition and provided a “back-to-work” plan that will have her returning to work part-time (no more than 20 hours per week) as early as January 7. Earlier this week we informed her speech therapist of the return-to-work plan and got her blessing, along with an assignment to have Mackenzie prepare some written messages explaning her condition and how others might help to deal with it. If I can get her to share I’ll maybe post those notes here in another update.

As ever, I am thankful for having each of you to share this adventure with. Take care.

-Mark M.